Visionary Comics is celebrating 10 years in the creative industry by announcing the hiring of two well-known industry execs and a retooled website as the first phase of a major expansion that will extend into 2016. Company leaders are calling the initiative “Visionary 2.0.” The announcement was made during a panel at the Tuscon Comic Con which took place this weekend.

The major additions to the company’s leadership include promotion of Jeff Mariotte as editor-in-chief, division chief for Visionary Books, and corporate partner, along with Andy Smith, who will serve as division chief of Visionary Arts.

Mariotte is an award-winning author of comics and prose, including his latest work entitled Empty Rooms. He will continue handling Visionary’s work with the popular Deadlands novels from Tor Books and will be launching new projects from the company in 2016. Smith is a top ranked professional artist, with a resume that includes extensive work on Marvel, DC, and Disney comic and book projects.

In addition, Visionary has virtually doubled its total staff handling day-to-day operations. Visionary’s growth will reflect a change in its overall mission and expansion of its goals. The company has moved beyond comics into prose fiction, children’s books, corporate branding, concept and design, etc.

Expect to see new titles under Visionary Comics, and the debut of Visionary Books with its upcoming Tor offerings, as well as others in the works. Next year will see new labels debut as well as Visionary moves more solidly into new markets.

The company has also relaunched their website with a new layout.

Other initiatives for the coming year include the relaunching of Visionary’s digital publishing efforts, which will include debuting new and revamped content on leading venues, such as Comixology, Amazon, iVerse, and Drive-Thru. Additionally the effort will expand into several newer and fast-growing venues, such as Madefire. The company will also launch its own studio owned properties under their own imprint, Visionary Creation. The new banner will feature properties uniquely created and targeted for transmedia development. These will debut with Visionary as comics and prose, and will become part of the growing library of intellectual properties Visionary represents for all forms of media.